| Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Miscellaneous Poems.
II. My Heart Shall Be Thy Garden | | By Alice Meynell (1847–1922) |
| | | | “Questo ne’ patti nostri, Amor, non era.” |
| LORENZO DE’ MEDICI. |
MY heart shall be thy garden. Come, my own, | |
| Into thy garden; thine be happy hours | |
| Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers, | |
| From root to crowning petal, thine alone. | |
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| Thine is the place from where the seeds are sown | 5 |
| Up to the sky enclosed, with all its showers. | |
| But ah, the birds, the birds! Who shall build bowers | |
| To keep these thine? O friend, the birds have flown. | |
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| For as these come and go, and quit our pine | |
| To follow the sweet season, or, new-comers, | 10 |
| Sing one song only from our alder-trees, | |
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| My heart has thoughts, which, though thine eyes hold mine, | |
| Flit to the silent world and other summers, | |
| With wings that dip beyond the silver seas. | | | | |
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